Giuseppe Verdi was born on 10 October 1813 at Roncole, a village in the duchy of Parma. His musical talent was recognized early in childhood. He was appointed organist of the parish church at the young age of 10 and was soon sent to the neighbouring town of Busseto to study music. With the support of a generous patron, Verdi proceeded to Milan for further studies in 1832, but was rejected by the Milan Conservatory because he was overaged. He became a private pupil of Vincenzo Lavigna who gave him a thorough preparation in counterpoint and harmony before he returned to Busseto as municipal music master and conductor of the town’s philharmonic society. At the age of 25, Verdi again went to Milan with his young family. His first opera, Oberto (1839), was produced at La Scala with some success, but his next work, a comic opera, was a failure. Depressed by the death of his wife and two children, Verdi decided
to give up composing. He was encouraged by the director of La Scala and the prima donna Giuseppina Strepponi to compose Nabucco (1842), which created a sensation.
Its subject matter dealt with the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, and the Italian public regarded it as a symbol of their own struggle against Austrian rule in northern Italy. Over the next eight years, Verdi produced 12 operas, among which I Lombardi (1843), Ernani (1844), Macbeth (1847), La Battaglia di Legnano (1849) and Luisa Miller (1849) were the outstanding successes. By this time, Strepponi had retired from the stage and lived with him until her death in 1897. They married in 1859. Meanwhile, Verdi’s reputation as the greatest composer of Italy had spread wide across Europe and his artistic achievements had become increasingly identified with the spirit of his own people whom he entertained, inspired, moved and sustained with his music.
Verdi reached the zenith of his international fame with Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore (1853) and La Traviata (1853), which became the perennial favorites of the entire operatic repertoire. Works of maturity that followed include Un Ballo in Maschera (1859), La Forza del Destino (1862), Don Carlo (1867) and Aïda (1871). In his seventies, Verdi produced the supreme expression of his genius Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). Both composed to librettos skillfully adapted from Shakespeare by Arrigo Boito, they were generally considered the greatest among all tragic and comic operas, respectively.
Verdi’s name had become synonymous with Italian patriotism and he contributed directly to the ‘risorgimento’ and the subsequent establishment of Italy as an independent and unified nation. He was appointed to the Parliament and served in the Senate of the new kingdom in 1861. He died at the age of 87 on 27 January 1901, in Milan
